WisBusiness: LUM wins Pressure Chamber

LUM took home a spray-painted gold suitcase last night after winning the Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce’s Pressure Chamber live pitch event.

That means company leaders will be joining other Madison-area businesses in October on a startup delegation to San Francisco to meet with Silicon Valley investment firms. LUM is also receiving $5,000 in consultant services, as well as a $2,500 voucher toward an office or co-working space at Industrious in Madison.

Pressure Chamber was held on the first day of Forward Fest, which runs until Aug. 23 and includes startup-focused events and programming held in Madison. LUM company leaders are holding a launch party tonight at the Monona Terrace, from 7:30 p.m. to midnight.

LUM’s CEO Max Fergus presented yesterday to a panel of expert judges and other members of Madison’s startup scene. The company was picked as winner based on a combination of audience and judge voting.

“Looking at the business model of music streaming, we have to realize the industry has never had a problem making revenue; they had a problem eliminating cost,” Fergus said. “Because LUM uses music streaming as a means to an end for emerging artists to get into other areas of the industry, we’re not concerned with those expensive royalty and licensing fees.”

Earlier this week, LUM closed on its first investment round with $500,000. Fergus says he’s looking to raise a Series A round within the next year, and is expecting over 200,000 monthly active users at that time. That’s up from the 5,000-or-so users he and co-founders have been able to round up for the early-access version of the platform in the past month.

“We’re actually very excited about how hot the landscape is, because we really feel that allows us to create inherent value,” he said.

The other presenting Madison startups were: Breathe for Change, which has a wellness education system for educators; AmebaGone, which is using harmless microbes to treat and prevent plant disease; GymDandy, a company that handles athletic space rentals online for parks, schools and local governments; and DataChat, which has a chatbot platform to deliver data analytics to users.

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